


Relief

by dame_chastain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2014 verse, Camp Chitaqua, Croatoan, End!verse, Gen, SPN Imagines, Self-Harm, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse, fucking Xavier, graphic depiction of self-harm, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dame_chastain/pseuds/dame_chastain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by this post from the SPN Imagines tumblr: "Imagine Sam, Dean, and Cas finding out about your self-harm scars".</p><p>Linnet, a young woman at Camp Chitaqua, has a very specific, very effective - very unhealthy - stress relief technique.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relief

**Author's Note:**

> The descriptions of self-harm in this fic are based on my own experience with it, and I wanted to write something that spoke to my own memories, the sensations and feelings I had when I was doing this sort of thing. I'm sorry if it seems unfeeling or unemotional or detached, but that's what I remember.
> 
> Happy carrying on. :)

Chuckling darkly at a horrible crote joke, Cas linked his arm through Linnet's and jostled her lightly as their company marched back up to Chitaqua.

Linnet drew in a quick, sharp breath and clenched her teeth, but made no sound. Nobody noticed. She didn't pull away from Castiel.

Underneath her jacket sleeves, though, she could feel the pressure dragging against the dried, beaded blood on her arm, soreness pooling in the tender skin. She didn't know a damn thing about arteries and veins (Dean knew about blood and bodies, but Linnet's shooting method was aim for the heart and the head and hope to hell), and she wondered if maybe that pressure could make the skin burst, blood flooding out and soaking her sleeve and Castiel's blue shirt.

It didn't happen. She gritted her teeth and forced some smiles and continued on. Her shoulders were stiff until Cas let her go with a quick and affectionate thump to her back, and then she relaxed. It must not have been too subtle, because somebody behind her - probably fucking Xavier - made a joke, something like "Don't get too close, everybody, I think Linnet's Aunt Rose is visiting", which was inaccurate, but truer than you'd think, and somewhere in the back of her mind she thought it was morbidly hilarious. For that reason alone, probably, she didn't rip Xavier a new one.

She'd been lucky when she got to Camp Chitaqua, battered and bruised but thankfully not bleeding - if she'd been bleeding there was a good chance Dean would have shoved her back out into crote territory. And there hadn't been much bunk space, but somehow everybody had missed the small loft at the far end of one of the cabins. There was no ladder for anyone to climb, and the space was very small - but it was just big enough for Linnet and an old sleeping bag and a big down comforter that Castiel had donated - because he was generous and sympathetic and, yeah, probably high as fuck. So she'd stacked a couple chairs (Reesa protesting that she was gonna break her neck), reached, and pulled herself into the tiny shadowy loft with the dangling naked lightbulb, and she'd created a nest for herself.

There was just room enough, too, for a few small things, piled together into a corner - the handgun she'd proven she could shoot well enough, a picture of her baby sister before the virus, her dad's old Swiss army knife. The occasional crappy paperback, lent to her by Chuck. Usually a half-empty can of stale beer.

Now, after dragging herself back to the cabin and shedding her heavy jacket, it was the beer that had her attention. She gulped it down and tossed the empty can into a corner of the cabin below - with a dozen other cans, Reesa's and Brian's and probably fucking Xavier's - and then dragged her sleeve up and bared her arm to the cold cabin air.

It was sore. If she touched a cut where it had scabbed, it stung a little, but really the worst were last night's. She'd misplaced her knife (found it the next morning in the tangles of her bedclothes) and had swiped a pair of scissors, but they were dull and didn't do the job. Those marks were raised and pink and desperately sore because she'd tried to go over each one so many times, desperate for the real thing. She hadn't gotten it, and had fallen asleep that night digging her short, bitten nails into her skin. A poor substitute. 

This morning, finding her knife, she'd made up for lost time and had felt settled. Now she sensed that calm, that blank and heavy concentration, settling on her brow again. She ran her palm over her battered arm - almost soothing - reached for her knife, and began. Her jaw tightened. She pressed down. She pulled.

Her breathing was even and deep through her nose. Her gaze was steady, her hand sure. The quiet in her head was almost oppressive, but it was warm and close, like a blanket, and she used it as she repeated and repeated again her ritual.

She did about a dozen before she heard the cabin door smack against the wall when it swung open, and the sure and heavy footfalls of boots on the floor.

You know who opens doors like that and walks like that and doesn't give a damn? She thought irritably.

Fucking Xavier.

Linnet closed her knife and yanked her sleeve down over her arm, but in her hurry she knocked the knife enough that it tumbled over the side of her loft and clattered onto the floor below. "Shit," she muttered. She heard the newcomer pick it up, and then she heard the creak of the stacked chairs she used to climb into the loft. Goddamn. She didn't want Xavier anywhere fucking near her space. Dude was a moron and a jackass.

But the dark hair and blue eyes that rose over the ledge did not belong to Xavier, and her stock, reserved-for-jackasses bitchface shifted into surprise as Castiel leaned into her loft, holding her knife out.

"You dropped something," he said. Linnet took the little red knife from him and nodded.

"I did," she responded with a sigh and raised brows, as though she were agreeing with a delusional child. Castiel's crooked grin told her he appreciated the casual sarcasm. He appreciated almost all the humor thrown his way, and Linnet wondered if it was because it felt like belonging. Thousands of years observing humanity, and now he couldn't get enough of being included as one of them. She wondered if she would feel that way.

"Come on out. Winch" - one of his pet names for Dean - "wants a debrief." He dropped back to the floor, letting himself swing from the loft for a second before landing.

"We're just gonna tell him what we've told him on every other supply run," Linnet grumbled, but she slid out all the same, dragging her jacket with her. She had to put weight on her arm, which hurt, but she dealt with it. "All it takes is a mental copy and paste and he's got his own damn debrief without having to bother anybody."

Castiel laughed. "You work up the guts to tell him that, and I'll stand by you every step of the way."

"No, you won't."

"No," he agreed, "I probably won't."

The debrief took all of five minutes - company accounted for, estimated number of crote sightings (two individuals, no packs), supplies acquired, Cas come get your fucking drugs, everybody take a beer. "See," Castiel grinned, "it's worth it for cold beer, instead of that lukewarm shit you hoard."

Linnet laughed, and was about to retort, when a sturdy shoulder knocked into her from behind and she went down.

Ordinarily it wouldn't have hurt, but the angle meant she braced her fall with forearms instead of hands, with one forearm instead of two, and with the left one instead of the right. To make it worse, something in the impact went straight to her shoulder, and she felt something shift uncomfortably, though not painfully - but she couldn't tell what. She let out a gritty yell through her teeth and swore. "Motherfuck!"

The offender - fucking Xavier, who had been moving backwards to catch a beer being thrown to him - she was going to fucking kill him - moved to help her up, babbling, "Jeez, sorry, Linnet, gotta fucking watch myself", but as his hand moved toward her arm she growled at him, "Don't fucking touch me," and he backed away. She shoved herself to her feet with her good arm, not really sure what to do with the bad one - the shoulder really hurt and the sliced up skin was so sore - so she held it close to her body, walked away to grab a beer, and headed outside.

Cas followed. "You okay? You went down pretty hard in there." He took in the stiff set of her arm, the discomfort on her face, and moved closer. "Hey, let me see," he said gently. Hands on her shoulder, and he massaged and frowned and felt, before giving her a bullshit grin and saying, "Yeah, I've got no idea what's wrong, but it feels pretty tense. Dean - hey, Dean!"

Dean shouldered his way out of his cabin, holding two beers and an icepack. "Saw what happened," he told them. "You okay?"

"Something's up with her shoulder, but I don't know what."

"Nah, of course you don't, you ditched the trenchcoat and got a gun but you're still a fucking baby," Dean said, almost absently, and Cas hummed a laugh. Dean prodded at Linnet's shoulder and asked where it hurt, then pronounced it twisted and put the icepack against the muscle. Unexpectedly, he placed a broad hand just below her elbow and lifted, so that her arm angled out from her body, and Linnet stiffened and jerked away with a hiss.

Dean and Cas both stared at her. "Lin, does that hurt?" Dean asked uncertainly.

"It's nothing," Linnet replied, before realizing that a twisted shoulder was something and she could have at least given that excuse, rather than a highly suspicious "it's nothing". Dean caught on right away, because he was Dean, and snorted, eyes narrowed.

"Bullshit," he said, and pulled her arm towards him again, his grip firmer than before, pulling the sleeve up before she could say anything. What could she have said, though, that would have allayed their suspicion?

When Dean saw the scars and the cuts, he didn't say anything. He did not, to Linnet's great relief, look surprised or pitying or unnecessarily sad. None of those would have sat truthfully with him. Cas looked surprised, but Cas always looked a little bit surprised, in that "well what do you know" way of his. Linnet wondered momentarily how he would have reacted years ago, before everything. How he would have been, what he would have said. If he would have cared. If he cared now.

"So." Dean finally said. "What are these."

"Just what they look like," Linnet told him, biting back the "moron" she wanted to tack onto the end of her response. From the look he gave her, though, she thought Dean could sense what she'd wanted to say.

"Don't be a shithead, Lin, tell me what's going on."

"What do you want me to say? It's just something I do."

"Why?"

"I don't know!" Linnet exclaimed, drawing away from him. "I just do it, it calms me down."

"Fucking slicing yourself open calms you down?" Dean was incredulous, and he almost looked angry. Cas moved forward. "Dean, deep breath," he said quietly. Dean glared.

"Don't give me that new age shit, Cas, I shouldn't be calm right now, look at her, she's, she's got fucking - "

"Dean."

Dean paused, and took his breath, glaring at Cas. Cas just gave him a small smile and turned to Linnet.

"So. When did you start?"

"I was - I guess I was about fourteen," Linnet said, remembering. It had been in the bathrooms at her high school. She remembered being surprised that it didn't hurt more.

Cas nodded. "And... it feels... good?"

"No, of course it doesn't feel good, Cas, would that - " Dean began, but Castiel gave him a look, and he shut up.

"It..." Linnet took a breath. "It doesn't really feel like anything." She didn't want to talk about this. She didn't have anything to say. "Look, I don't do it to punish myself, I don't do it because I'm sad, I don't do it because I'm dead inside or whatever - it just calms me down, it's - "

"If you say any variation of 'it's fine', Linnet, I will fucking punch you in your face," Dean growled. Cas didn't stop him. Linnet glared back at him.

"What the fuck do you want me to say, then, Dean?"

"Lin, if it were fine," Cas said, "you wouldn't have wanted to hide it from us."

"It's - that's not - it's none of your business!" Linnet exclaimed. Dean's eyes widened.

"Oh, I think it's entirely my business! I run this goddamn camp, Linnet, and it is my job to keep you all safe, and if you're endangering your own life - "

"They're not suicidal cuts - "

"I'm not talking about suicide! We live in cabins in the fucking woods, Linnet, it's a miracle we've got clean water, and if those cuts you've got get infected, who fucking knows what we'll be able to do for you?" Dean demanded. 

Linnet hadn't thought of that. Think of why you're here, her mind whispered, and she thought of the virus that had claimed so many, had claimed - 

"We can't - I can't - watch you get in over your head with this, Lin, I can't fucking do it. It calms you down, makes things quiet, helps you relax, so you don't stop, you never stop? You know what that's called, Linnet, it's called an addiction."

"Dean - "

"Don't interrupt me, Cas," Dean glared at him, "because I know about this, I was there when - when Sammy was, was fucking strung out - when this whole shit show started - and I know it's not the same thing but it's still fucking bad."

Linnet watched him very carefully. It was a rare thing for Dean to talk about his brother. He pressed a hand to his face and sighed. "Lin. You can't. Do this. Anymore. I can't be scared all the fucking time that this fucked up world, this hole at the end of the universe, is going to claim one more good soul who deserves so much better - you deserve better, Lin - " his voice cracked, and he stopped and breathed.

Dean wasn't the crying type, but he looked like he might now, and Linnet thought of that picture of Sam she had seen one night in Castiel's cabin. A tall, gangly boy with a sunlit smile. She thought of her own sibling, her sister's toothy grin and soft hair. She thought of all the ways her heart, and Dean's heart, had been broken. Think of the sickness in the world, something in her brain murmured. Think of all the people you all have lost. 

Think of your sister's dead and hungry eyes those last days. 

That smell of disease. 

Her hands, her blood. Linnet felt dizzy and she clutched at the porch railing. Castiel was by her side, though, and he held her steady. "You need some water."

"I've got a beer."

"You do indeed. And you need some water." Linnet and the two men went back inside. Linnet slumped into a chair and Dean filled a glass with water while Castiel knelt in front of her, rubbing her hands between his.

"I'm keeping this for a while," he told her, holding up the Swiss army knife. If she had felt up to it, Linnet would have had a few choice insults about what a dirty pickpocket he was, but for now she let it slide.

"Baby, we need you here," Castiel said gently as Dean pushed the drink into her hands. "Don't shut yourself away to hurt yourself."

Linnet gulped down the icy water, and the cold flooding her throat felt a little like relief.

**Author's Note:**

> Also it's a quarter to 3 in the morning and I've got a feeling I rushed the ending, and it could have been better, but I wanted to get it out there. I'll probably come back and edit it later.


End file.
